Spring is Busting Out All Over

Here are lots of pictures of the Spring activities Kent and I did in March and April. 

The cherry blossom trees in DC bloomed very early this year because we had such a mild winter, so we took our annual visit to see the trees a couple of weeks earlier than usual. 

You can see by our attire that the weather was rather warm.  Some years we're bundled up in coats to see the cherry blossom trees. 

We love Mount Vernon but I'd never seen it in the spring, so it was another of our destinations in March.

These chairs are on the back veranda, overlooking the Potomac River. 

This is the view from the veranda.  Kinda gives me goosebumps to think George and Martha Washington saw this same view.

This is one of my favorite quotes on the wall at Mount Vernon.  It really makes me believe that George Washington's life was preserved so he could lead our young country.

I did some spring entertaining this year. 

I invited the neighbor ladies over to lunch. 

 I made the envelopes for the invitations out of square doilies and lined them with vellum.  They were lovely, but fragile, so I hand delivered the invitations.

 

I served lunch to the members of my Relief Society presidency on my great-grandmother's china.

We had company over for Easter brunch, where I used my mother's china and silver goblets.

Kent and I took this picture one Friday evening before our shift working at the temple because the tulips were so pretty.

We spent a Saturday morning working to clean the temple grounds.

Kent was pretty excited to see that the temple has an engineer, and is hoping someday "temple engineer" will be his job.

Another wonderful spring destination is the azalea walk at the National Arboretum in DC

I met Kent after work one day and we walked through the arboretum.

Kent and I took an overnight trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  Our first stop was the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

It was very interesting to hear about how the first working airplane came to be and why they chose Kitty Hawk North Carolina to test it out.

We saw a couple of historic lighthouses.

And went to the Elizabethan gardens near the lost colony site on Roanoke Island.

This is a replica of the ship that the early settlers came over in.

I flew out to Utah and spent a wonderful week with Adri, Russ, and Sophia. Tyler also flew in from Alabama to attend graduation and see his girlfriend.  You can see lots more pictures from that visit on Adri's blog.

 Tyler graduated from BYU and got engaged to the lovely and charming Rachel Judd.  It was a GREAT week for Tyler!

 After I got back from Utah I went on a home and garden tour of some historic homes in Fredericksburg, Virginia.   Pictured below is Kenmore, the home of George Washington's sister.

  There were fabulous flower arrangements in the six homes I toured.  I liked the arrangement below because I thought it was fun they used asparagus around the bottom.

 Lastly, we went to the National Botanic Garden another day after Kent got off work.   

 This European-looking fountain below is pretty close to the capitol building.  The building over Kent's right shoulder is the Botanic garden, where the picture two previous was taken.

 I'd say we did a very good job of getting out to enjoy an especially beautiful spring in Virginia!!

West Coast Visit

Kent and I had the wonderful opportunity to spend a week in California and Oregon March 5th through the 12th.  We had a direct flight from DC to LA, landed at around noon and rented a car.  

As we were driving away from the airport I said, "I wonder where the LA temple is from here?"  I put it into our GPS and discovered we were just a few miles away, so we stopped by to see it.  

The visitor's center had recently been remodeled and we spent about an hour there.  We took some photos and then headed back to the freeway.  It was an unscheduled stop but a nice one.

 

 Our next stop was just 30 miles down the road.  We went to the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley.  We LOVED learning more about Pres. Reagan's life.  He was such an honorable and patriotic man.  The library was surprisingly busy on a Monday afternoon at the beginning of March.

 Below is a retired Air Force One airplane.  We were able to walk through it but there were no photos allowed.

 Below is the actual written speech that Pres. Reagan gave in front of the Berlin Wall in 1987.

 A replica of the Oval Office in the White House.

 President Reagan's grave site.

 At about 8 pm on March 5th we arrived in Lompoc to stay with Garrett and Krystal.  Daniel was ready for bed by the time we got there.

The picture below was taken the next day when three generations of Carson males worked together to assemble a bed frame for the air mattress that Kent and I slept on while we were in California.

 Daniel was fascinated with the tools.

 Daniel has learned to make a "frowny" face and always got a laugh from all of us when he made it.  He did it a lot because he liked the big reaction he got from us.

 Daniel was just becoming proficient at walking by himself, and he especially liked walking up and down the hall since there wasn't anything in his way.  he went back and forth several times just practicing his walking skills.

 The reason for our visit was to attend Garrett's promotion to 1st Lieutenant ceremony and to attend his missile training graduation.  We're so proud of him and glad we could be there for his big events.

The rest of the pictures are just Daniel's random cuteness.

Daniel was as helpful with the yard work as he was assembling the bed frame.

I brought Daniel this little toy keyboard.  He's wearing some pajamas his great grandma Christensen (pictured at the end of this post) made for Garrett when he was one.

 We flew from LA to Portland, Oregon.  It was a clear day and I took this picture of Mount Shasta as we were flying over it.  We surprised my parents with our weekend visit to be there for my mother's birthday.

On Sunday morning we left bright and early to visit the newly opened Portland Temple visitor's center since church didn't start until 1pm.

 It was small but very nice.  When we arrived we were the first and only visitor's there at that time, so we got a private tour from the missionary couple serving there.

The Portland Temple was our assigned temple back in the early 90's when we lived in Walla Walla, but we haven't been there in many years.

 We stayed in Oregon with my brother, Reed, and his wife, Myra.  Myra made an amazing family birthday dinner and cake for Mom, so I think she had a memorable birthday.

 We flew home on March 12.  We flew over the DC temple as were landing at Reagan National Airport, and I snapped a picture.  There was glare from the window, so it's not the best photo, but I still thought it looked really cool.

Always a Month Behind

 

 Each month I try to visit one of the kids, and in February I went to Texas to see Lissa, Jason and their girls.  The occasion was Lissa and Jason's wedding anniversary, so they slipped away for a night while I was there

and I babysat my two precious little granddaughters.

I had a wonderful time.  Here are a few photos from my visit.  Savannah was very close to crawling while I was there, but didn't start until the week after I left.

    I made a quiet book for the girls and took it with me when I went.  Below is a picture of Kiera looking at it.  I'll be posting pictures of the quiet book and the one I made for Daniel in a future post. 

While I was having a great time in Texas with my sweet little girls, Kent was in Virginia attending the Cub Scout Blue and Gold Banquet. It was a medieval theme,

 After I got home Kent and I attended the Washington Wizards game against the Sacramento Kings.  The reason we went was because Jimmer Fredette, the former BYU player, is on the team.  Jimmer played for the entire 2nd quarter and made 8 points, so it was fun to see him play.